Patents Alerts Archive 2010

Please join the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in celebrating the anniversary of the e-Office Action (e-OA) program launched one year ago today. As of June 2010, 30 percent of all patent correspondence now is communicated via e-Office Action. Since July 2009, the program has electronically notified patent applicants on more than 850,000 Office communications.

For those of you that have been participating, we applaud you for adopting the 21st century alternative to receiving paper Office communication. It is because of your support of the e-Office Action program that the USPTO has reduced Office paper use by more than 9.2 million pages.

Current participants acknowledge the benefits of the program, which include streamlining business practices and receiving notifications several days faster. The success of the e-Office Action program could not be possible without participation and feedback from our customers. We encourage you to continue to provide feedback and comments on your use of e-Office Action.

Enrolling in the e-Office Action program is simple and will help you save time and reduce paper. Anyone interested in joining the e-OA program should visit the e-Office Action Web site or contact the PAIR Team at PAIR@USPTO.GOV today.

If you have any questions regarding the e-Office Action Program for Private PAIR, please contact the Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free) or 571-272-4100 from 6 a.m. to 12 Midnight Eastern Time, Monday - Friday or e-mail the EBC at ebc@uspto.gov.

May 2010

May 20, 2010 - USPTO Protects Filing Date with Launch of New Contingency Option in EFS-Web

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is pleased to announce the deployment of a new contingency option in EFS-Web to aid in the protection of your patent application-filing date and increase overall system availability for electronic filing.

After experiencing periods of unexpected system outages, the USPTO analyzed the problems and explored solutions. From there, the USPTO created an alternate channel for applicants to file new applications electronically when the primary portal to EFS-Web has an unscheduled outage. The enhanced EFS-Web system with contingency option was launched on May 19, 2010 and provides an Electronic Acknowledgement Receipt that establishes the date of receipt by the USPTO of a new application.

This backup option to access EFS-Web offers the same user interface and equivalent functionality as with EFS-Web Unregistered access by permitting users to file new applications, national stage applications under 35 U.S.C. 371, requests for reexamination and certain petitions.

Currently, the new contingency option in EFS-Web does not permit follow-on fee payments and most follow-on documents (e.g., amendments and replies to Office actions) filed after the initial submission of the application.

Learn more about the enhanced EFS-Web system with new contingency option:

Please contact the Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 from 6 a.m. to 12 Midnight Eastern Time, Monday - Friday, or send an e-mail to ebc@uspto.gov<mailto:ebc@uspto.gov>.

Tell us what you think about the enhanced EFS-Web system:

If you have questions, comments or feedback that you would like to provide to the USPTO about EFS-Web or other patent e-Commerce systems, please visit the USPTO Feedback Channel: http://www.uspto.gov/blog/feedback/